Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
For other Christians on here, or seriously religious people, how do you handle the paradox of belief? I was talking to a friend today about my recent experience joining an Orthodox Christian church, and it's just so interesting. The 'logical' part of my brain relentlessly attacks what it sees as the foolishness of religion, ritual and sacrament.
And yet, when I partake and do my best to take it seriously, I feel healed. The spiritual water that Christ talks about in the Bible slakes my thirst. It's almost impossible to conceptualize, but damn it I've tried so many different ways to heal my inner wounds throughout my life, and this one works better than anything, by far.
How do you make sense of a serious religious practice, while keeping the ability to be seriously rational?
For my part, I'm not sure I experience the "paradox of belief." I've never understood why some rationalists act like "faith" is irrational, as if you're only permitted to believe in things that are epistemically certain. Beyond "cogito ergo sum," there's not much knowledge available to us that's not ultimately based on pragmatic leaps of logic. I can't prove that the world outside my head really exists, or that the past and future really exist, or that causation is real. I don't pretend to understand Godel's incompleteness theorem, but my layman's understanding of it is that even math relies on unprovable assumptions to work. And most of what we call "scientific knowledge" is far more tenuous than these propositions: we say that we know, for example, that an oxygen atom has eight protons, but I've never actually checked. I just assume the scientists who say that know what they're talking about and have no reason to lie. (These are not always safe assumptions to make about scientists.) I'm told that a lot of chemical reactions would not work if oxygen had more or less than 8 protons per atom, but again, I have no personal way of knowing whether that's true, beyond my mostly-uncritical acceptance of scientific consensus. In the face of pure, uncompromising skepticism, scientific "knowledge" is just as untenable as religious belief.
We ultimately rely on faith for almost all the knowledge we use--because otherwise we couldn't use any knowledge. Epistemic certainty has to yield to pragmatic utility. Therefore, as long as my religious beliefs aren't provably false (which would be utility-decreasing, because it would cause me to make predictions that turn out to be incorrect, to my detriment), and if those beliefs make me better off (consensus seems to be that religious people tend to be happier and more mentally healthy than nonbelievers), I don't see why it's "irrational" to continue being religious.
Finally, plenty of prominent rationalists have beliefs that seem just as strange and unfalsifiable as my own religious beliefs; some believe that we're living in a simulation, some believe in panpsychism, some believe we inhabit a multiverse where every possible reality exists at once, etc. I don't see why Christianity is any less compatible with rationalism than these other weird ideas.
Like you, I find Christianity imparts meaning to my life in a way no other worldview can. It has unequivocally improved the quality of my life. The smart thing to do--the rational thing--would be to go on believing it and acting accordingly. I have further thoughts, but I've got to go now.
Beautifully said. That's the type of worldview I am moving towards.
Yeah, I feel this keenly! It sometimes seems like more of a fashion thing amongst intellectual circles. Christianity is coded as old and dowdy and uncool. You can have just as crazy beliefs but they're new so people take them more seriously.
I'd love to hear your further thoughts sometime if you feel inclined to write them down.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link